Bleach 417

I'm back! Anyone miss me? No? Well, I guess I wasn't gone long enough. I've moved to a place near my new school but still haven't really settled down yet. I probably won't be watching anime for a few more days, but I have time to read manga, so here is my weekly Bleach post featuring the new-look Ichigo showing off.

Talk to the hand.

Summary:
After setting his dad down, the new and improved Ichigo looks around to check that his friends are alright before telling them to stay put and let him handle things. Aizen starts trash talking Ichigo about how he doesn't have a reiatsu signature. However, Ichigo doesn't pay attention at all and is instead checking out Rangiku looking at Gin who share a glance with Ichigo. Ichigo wants to fight elsewhere to keep the others safe, but Aizen doesn't care, so Ichigo grabs Aizen by the face and pushes him a few miles away to outside of town.

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The more I read Bleach, the more it reads like Dragonball. The super-power-up after training in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, wanting to fight elsewhere to save the innocents and the possible teleporting... the parallels are quite obvious. As expected, new-look Ichigo is much more powerful than before and lands the first hit on Butterflaizen. If this turns out to be a classic power-up fight, Ichigo will smack Aizen around for a bit before Aizen unleashes some new power to one-up Ichigo. It won't be all that convincing but at least a fight is better than Aizen chasing Ichigo's friends around. This is most likely not the final battle though. If Bleach ends right after this battle then the series is admitting defeat, and at this point it's best for it to carry on and try to generate some momentum in hopes that we forget about the bad parts. I'm still hoping this manga will become good again eventually.

In other news, looks like Gin is possibly still alive despite having a pre-death flashback. If a "good" character doesn't get blown into pieces or have a funeral, we can't write him/her off.